


Sins of the father, make sins of the son

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Actively considering suicide, Albus Severus Slytherin, Bad parenting all around, Birth, Cheating, Dark fic, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Abusive Parent, F/M, M/M, Molestation Mentioned, Mpreg, Severus Snape was Harry’s father, Slash, Suicide, Suicide Notes, Suicide victim found, repeated relatives killing themselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-05 17:10:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20492339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Severus Snape and Lily Evans had a one night stand, that turned into more. She planned to leave James Potter, but then realized Severus was a death eater. Severus, her and James did a spell to hide who Harry’s real father was. With all three dead it’s breaking in a way they didn’t imagine it would.Severus survived the war to only kill himself before Albus Severus was born. Sending a letter to his son before his death Magic has a way of fixing things. James Sirius is a splitting image of James Potter, but Albus Severus is not. He doesn’t look like Harry, his brother or Ginny, he’s young Snape with Lily’s nose and her green eyes.His name which Harry thought would honor the two men who gave and nearly gave their lives for him, but instead it is a curse to his son.So after much questioning from his intelligent clearly a Slytherin son at ten years old Harry tells Albus Severus the story of his true grandfather Severus Tobias Snape. And the nightmares after the war of his own. Nightmares can take a life of their own sometimes.Sins of the father are sins of the son, and they too can become sins of the grandson.





	Sins of the father, make sins of the son

**Author's Note:**

> If you are struggling with anything like what’s in this story get help. Someone anyone you will want to help you. There are phone numbers you can call and numbers you can text. 
> 
> Please get help.

  1. * * *

Albus Severus Potter was a odd child, surely not what you expected when hearing the Potter name. He was quiet, thoughtful, sullen, troublesome, ambitious, and rather horrid on a broom. His own mother desperately tried to change the way he looked. His long greasy hair hung in his thin face, hiding his bright green eyes. She regularly tried cutting it short, though it grew back as if it had a life of its own seconds later. 

The few people who had known James Potter before he had passed away, the man who was suppose to be Harry’s father questioned if Albus was actually a Potter at all, though the green eyes were a dead giveaway that Harry James was at least his father. The truth was Albus Severus looked like his grandfather, his true grandfather. One Severus Tobias Snape. How can that be you must be asking? When we all know the truth of Harry James Potter, who was his father and mother were?

Well the truth is that’s a little bit more complex than you were led to believe. You see I am the son of Albus Severus and a man of the name Scorpius Malfoy, who likely visiting father’s grave right now. There are never happy endings for Princes not Eileen, Severus, Albus or even myself, though I am choosing not to have children. There is no blood curse, it’s a simpler far muggle thing, mental illness. But that is not the story I want to tell you, the story I want to tell you is the one my own grandfather wrote down for my father when he was only ten years old. But first I should start with the letter my great grandfather wrote before his death. Before he took his own life because all he had to live with was lies and nightmares. I shall say it again there are no happy endings for the Prince family. 

I will tell you though before I start all, but my grandparents, and great grandmother were a Slytherin, and surely you have been told don’t trust Slytherins haven’t you? No well seems my grandpa did enough education on such a subject once he pulled his head out of his ass. Now own with the letter, and then to onto the story. 

*********

Severus Snape picked up his quill as he started to write. He had finally gotten the courage to do what he had been planning since the night Lily died. Though truly he had been planning this school. If he was fully honest with himself he had wanted to do this since understand it was possible for someone to kill themselves. Though it formed fully inside his mind when he found his mother hanging by a rope from her bedroom ceiling fan at sixteen. If Eileen Prince Snape could choose to check out on life, why couldn’t he not too? 

His death was going to quieter, simpler. He would take the potion he had been brewing over the last few days, take it, lay in the rickety bed that had once belonged to his parents and simply never wake up. He would see Lily again, he would see Regulus, he would see his mother, or he might go straight to hell if you believed in the Christian bullshit his father had bought into. Though Severus never was one to believe in one male just God. If there was one, the Dark Lord never would of came to power, his mother would of never taken her own life, and Harry Potter would of been Harry Prince. 

Truly though why Harry Potter looked like a Potter he wasn’t one. He just looked like one, due to spell that he and Lily had been forced to cast by one James Potter when the baby was born. His mother use to say everyone cheats, when he complained about his father coming back from the bar smelling like some other women’s perfume. 

When he ran into his oldest friend at a bar one night, she proved his mother’s statement to be true. Before they were drunk they couldn’t even look at each other kindly, and yet there was enough cheap muggle beer in the world to get the pretty Ms Evans in bed with the ugly Snape boy. For one night Severus believed he could have all he ever had wanted, Lily Jane Evans. That’s all he had ever wanted. But, then in the early morning light seeping through the bay windows of his London apartment, she has seen his dark mark. 

She had jumped from the bed like she had been bitten by a viper. In a way she had been. She did not scream at him, she did not throw things at him. She simply said “I could of loved you Severus, and I would of left James for you. But now I want to never see you again”.

She didn’t get her wish, she did have to see him again, but that was James Potter’s fault. Their son or what James thought was their son, had been born a healthy seven pounds eight ounces, and clearly the son of Snape. His baby hair was straight as a board, black as night, skin pale as milk, eyes darkening steadily to black. James Potter knew what his wife had done. Instead of chucking her and the baby out? He got a sickening grin on his tan face, as he forced Lily and Severus to fix their “little mistake” as he referred to their son. 

The spell was tied to their magic, all three of them, it would affect the person of Harry’s line who was born when all three of them were dead. Surely they all would live long enough that it wouldn’t be a big deal? James hoped Severus would be the first to die, but the truth was he was the last.

Severus finished his letter to Harry James Potter, his son, something he would never speak to the boy, no man who was nothing like him. His hands shaking as he did so. He had told his son nearly five years ago to not call him a coward, and yet the truth is Severus was a coward, unwilling to face the child he had sired, the choices he had made, and unwillingness to face life. 

Severus Snape sent the finished the letter sending with ebony black owl, who would become his son’s once the letter was delivered Rose would not leave. He was part of the reason Hedwig was dead, so it was right that Rose would take over her job. She would never replace his son’s beloved owl, but she could at least do her job for Harry. Severus had no need for her anymore. 

She flew out his window, and the last bit of his reason to live did as well. He took off his heavy black robes, hanging them up for the last time. He straightened the things in what was once his parents bedroom. He washed his hair, brushing it out, for once. He laid down on top of the covers in a black button down shirt, slacks with his socked feet. He took the potion and then went to sleep a sleep he would never wake up from. 

For the first time in Severus Tobias Snape’s life he was at peace, and it only took death to reach it. Severus’s soul escaped to a land where Lily loved him, his mother was happy, his father never existed, and where Remus Lupin was his friend. It something like Christian’s heaven, but different than Tobias Snape preached it would be. His soul was finally at rest.

************

Harry was raising a two year old with a pregnant wife who was mostly on bedrest. He was also a full time Auror when he didn’t have time off. His son yet to be named was to be born in a week. So the department had given him time off. He was still trying to help from the sidelines though. He was going over case notes at his desk late in the evening when a small black owl banged loudly on his window. He tried to ignore it, but she only banged louder. He didn’t want to be bothered by anyone, he just wanted to get this work done and then go to bed. But the little owl wouldn’t take no for an answer it seemed.

He opened the rusty window latches and let the stupid owl in. She landed politely on his desk and stared at him. He removed the parchment from small thin leg, and sat back down. It was from Severus Snape. That was odd. He had saved the man’s life that night in the shack, defended him to the Auror department and the courts. He wrote multiple letters to those who ran papers defending the man. Last he had heard Snape was living a quiet student free life running a small mail order potion’s business. Which seemed to suit the man far better than teaching ever had. 

He read the letter quietly to himself. 

What the HELL? 

SNAPE was not his father. James Potter was his father. Surely someone would of told him. Anyone would of told him. Snape should of told him. Did the man really hate his own son so much that he wouldn’t tell him.

Wait James forced him and Lily to put a spell on Harry..... 

And there was a way to check for that spell. 

He did so quietly to himself in his office. 

The spell was on him. 

Severus Tobias Snape was his father, not James Charles Potter. 

Harry read the last bit of the letter Snape, no his father, his only living blood relative besides his son was going to kill himself. 

He aparated to the man’s house like he was being chased by the devil himself. In actually he was being chased by the fact if he didn’t hurry he was going to find his father dead. No matter was Severus had done to Harry he was still his father, he was still his dad, he was still a living relative. 

Harry unlocked the front door with a spell. He saw the living room filled with books, the worn well used old couch and armchair. He saw the rickety stairs and ran up them two at time. The bedroom from Severus’s memory was empty a just boxes, a mattress on the floor, and a milk crate as a nightstand, he past the bathroom which too was empty, he reached the end of the hall to the master bedroom. Unlike the others this door was shut, he slammed his shoulder in to try and open it, but it didn’t budge one bit. 

He used magic to unlock it. Harry in the war, at work, and in general from growing up during the war had seen a lot of death. Sirius, Cedric, Remus, Tonks, Fred, Dobby, hell even the Voldemort. But Severus was by far the most peaceful. 

His clean inky black hair, it was surely not greasy tonight, hung into his pale long face. His black eyes open, but unseeing, his skin as pale as snow, as pale as milk, as pale as death. The only other time that he had seen the man so undressed was when he had caught Harry roaming the halls one night. The man had been in a nightshirt and dressing gown that night. Beyond that Severus had always been so uptight, well kept, his hair was always greasy, but his clothing was rather well put together, even if it was rather Victorian in nature. 

He was in a black button down untucked, black slacks, and a pair of wool socks. The wool socked feet made the man seem human. Like he was just a broken man. That he was so many things besides a death eater and spy. That this man could of raised him if someone would of allowed him to. 

That maybe, just maybe if Dumbledore would freed this man from his promises to spy, to protect his only son by hating him, risking his own life, and doing so many horrible things? He could raised Harry. He could of been the parent Harry never had. Harry saw what all it could of been and never would be. 

He ran to the bedside of his father, collapsed like he was a marionette and someone had cut his strings. He shook the body pleading with the man to come back. Saying how sorry he was. Saying he would of loved him. Begging the man to come back. Saying all he had ever wanted was a parent and just when he finds out he has one he’s dead. 

He babbled like a child about how the hat wanted to put him in Slytherin, about how grateful he was for Snape protecting him. He babbled, cried and fell asleep on the floor of the room where his real grandmother had killed herself. And where his father lay dead. Something that night in Harry James Potter or Prince if you prefer snapped. Just as the same it does to all Princes whether they look like one or not.

***********

Ginny Potter realized early the next morning her husband was nowhere to be found. For a second she was worried he had gone into work as much as she had asked him to do no such thing. Then she found Severus Snape’s letter and Rose the owl sitting on Harry’s perch as if it was her own. She did not know why her husband had a owl perch he made it clear he did not want another owl. And yet the jet black like a raven owl was sitting on the perch like she owned the place. 

Then she had found Snape’s letter on Harry’s desk. She fire called Hermione and asked her first to check St Mungos and then the house if he wasn’t there. Maybe Snape didn’t actually go through with killing himself? No it was Snape, and the one thing she knew about the man he wasn’t one to say something and not follow through. Snape either was dead or Harry took him to the hospital or was trying to treat the man at his house. Snape was not fine and dandy unless Harry had caught him in the act. And if that was the case the man still needed medical attention at least a mind healer. 

She wasn’t going to think about Severus Snape being her husband’s father, or her children’s grandfather and what that meant for them. She would not think about the fact the son who would be born very soon would look nothing like his elder brother, who was a splitting image of James Potter, and that this child would only share the characteristics with Harry that he had gotten from Lily Evans. 

She hoped for her unborn’s son sake he looked like a Weasley or Lily Evans. It would not be easy to be the expression of the backlash of magic, and one of the problems with this spell that fucking James Potter insisted on using was it would have backlash. 

Maybe the pureblood wizard simply wanted to use Harry as a placeholder until he got a real heir, that was what this spell was mostly for, because the one giving the information could remove it at anytime, or upon those involved death the magic would snap back, and effect the next child born in the direct line of the person who the spell was used on. Basically outing the likely then grown man or woman when they went to have a heir that they were a fraud. 

She knew there was no escape for her son if Severus Snape was dead. She hoped he wasn’t, but she knew he likely was. Her unborn baby would pay with being the child who sticks out like a sore thumb in his own family for his grandfather’s choice.

Please Merlin she thought let Snape be alive, so this can be dealt with, and her son’s looks will not be what “outs” Harry as not a Potter. Snape had more tack than her husband ever had. He would know how to deal with the wizarding world on this issue and how to explain it. 

She knew however wishing to Merlin would do her no good. What was, was what was, and that’s just the way life is.

************

Hermione Weasley first checked St Mungos they had not heard from either Harry or Snape. Her heart sank with that news. Merlin just when Harry learns he’s got family it’s a letter about the relative wanting to kill themselves, even with it being Snape she knew he wouldn’t care. Harry wanted desperately to take his children to more than headstones to visit. 

The Weasleys were wonderful grandparents, no doubt about that, Molly was watching Rose for her at the moment, but while Harry was family by marriage and in their hearts? He would never be family by blood. Hermione couldn’t imagine your only blood relatives being your child, it was heartbreaking. It didn’t matter if it was their former greasy potion’s professor. It didn’t matter the man had known Harry for years, and never mentioned their relationship. 

That wouldn’t stop the fact this was hurting her friend so badly if he had found his father dead. She aparated to the house in Spinner’s end. The door was wide open. Like Harry had rushed in. Surely if Snape was alive, it would of been shut with much complaining by the Slytherin.

She walked into the worn, old living room, the only impressive thing being the walls of books. Mostly magically, mostly old. But there were older muggle books in Snape’s numerous tomes as well as a few muggle paper backs. This was a living room Hermione dreamed about, but Ron would never let her have. 

She looked in the old puke green kitchen that looked straight out of the fifties, which it likely was. Paint was peeling, the appliances at least as old as Severus himself. She left the kitchen, going up the well used stairs. She passed a bedroom that must of been Snape’s when he was a child. Mattress on the floor, milk crate as a nightstand, and boxes everywhere. The poor man lived with ghosts it seemed. But these weren’t the magically type. Muggle ghosts rarely talked back to you, and they mostly haunted you from your own memories.

She would bet anything Severus Snape was abused as a child. This house, his former bedroom. Some of his more questionable behaviors. His abuse of his students, the way he sometimes seem to doge other adults possible blows that never were to come. The way he never tried to adopt his son, likely believing he wasn’t good enough to raise Harry. But most of all the night she found him back when the order was still a thing, back in summer before fifth year, huddled in a room crying. He had thrown a book at her head, snarling like a banshee. He had threatened her about ever mentioning what she had found to anyone when he had pulled himself back together. 

Through mental noting, paying attention which neither Harry, nor Ron seemed rather good at. She put the pieces together and then later with the help of hearing bits and pieces of Severus’s memories at the trial which happened while he was still in a coma. Severus Snape terribly abused by his parents. Or at least his memories claimed. The house confirmed it in her mind. Which meant it also confirmed the man was sexually abused by Lucius Malfoy since childhood, since he was eleven. Just the thought made her want to vomit. Just the thought made her want to hunt down Malfoy Senior and kill him. 

Severus Snape was no Saint, but he surely wasn’t a monster. Severus Snape had once been a little boy who trusted the prefect to be nice to him. The man who bought him nice clothes, but instead of being from the kindness of his heart it was to shut the little boy up. To keep him quiet about the monster, who the Slytherin prefect was doing to him. A child like Severus with such low self esteem, so low view of themselves, from a abusive background was like a gift on a sliver platter to someone who wanted to molest or rape them. 

God’s why didn’t someone try and protect him? Harry wasn’t the only “pig being led to slaughter” as Snape had put it about Harry. Severus himself was being led to his own slaughter from the day he stepped off the Hogwarts express that first time. And it made her want to strangle every single professor that worked during his schooling, someone, anyone muggle or magical should of done more for Severus Snape before this day.

She past the old bathroom, it was much the same as the rest of the house. Old, peeling paint, and rusted fixtures. The house had seen its better days. She found Harry sleeping on the floor next to a dead man laying on the bed. Severus Snape had the deathly pallor about his body, his eyes she guessed had been shut by Harry. His body just looked unnaturally rigid. The potion’s professor likely had been dead all night.

“Harry”, she called out. “We need to get the funeral wizards here. There is nothing that can be done, for Severus, your.....” Was unable to finish that thought. 

Harry’s head snapped up, he stared at her and finished the sentence “my father. He’s my father. James adopted me with a odd spell, but if we are being honest I am the son of Lily Potter and Severus Snape. So Malfoy was right when he called me a bastard”.

Hermione sighed and grabbed her friend into her arms, saying “no your not a bastard. This doesn’t change who you are. You are Harry James Potter if you choose to be. He can be whatever you want him to be to you, or nothing. Severus’s own mental illness is what killed him, not you, not your mother, not James Potter. Severus Snape was the one who choose to take that potion. And you don’t have to agree with me, but as you know you can’t change my mind.”

Harry nodded at the witch, his friend, his closest friend. She led him down to the living room and called for the wizard funeral company. His note, the potion bottle in Severus’s potion stained long fingers, the things in his lab, it all made it clear what his cause of death was, suicide. And that’s just how it was. 

*********

Three days later Severus Tobias Snape was lowered into the ground in the cemetery in Godric’s Hollow, Harry didn’t know where else to bury him. Very few people attended. Hagrid, Minerva, Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Narcissa, Draco, Arthur, Molly and the man who issued Snape’s mastery in Potion’s a quiet French wizard, who was easily as old as Dumbledore had been. He said his name was Albert. 

The children were left home. James was too young for this, Hermione had decided to leave Rose with Bill, which caused the Potters to do the same with James. Very few people were here for just Snape, many were here to support Harry, others were for both men. It was raining, it pelted their wizard robes and wool cloaks. Surely the man who tried to hide for most of his life that his father had been muggle wouldn’t want them dressed in muggle suits? 

Some had questioned Harry’s dress code, but he was the one who had seen the man’s memories. Minerva had agreed with him, and besides Albert, who Harry had barely spoken to, she knew the Potion’s master best of them all. White Lilies were laid on the man’s casket of oak before he was lowered. His Ebony wand in his casket with him. 

Albert cried silently to himself, Severus decades ago had been like a son to him. Before the Dark Lord had gotten him into his clutches, that is. Harry’s tanned face was like stone, Ginny cried for her unborn son, who would spend the rest of his life looking different or mostly different than his parents, and brother. She didn’t know if she wanted to have other children. The curse may or may not affect future children besides their second son, depending on how James Potter worded it. 

Draco Malfoy walked over to Harry when the casket was covered with dirt and the headstone was placed. People were shocked with the wording Harry had chosen for the headstone “friend, son, father, grandfather and war hero. Severus Snape never knew how great love of those who cared him was. He was the bravest man I ever knew. May death greet him like a old friend.”

Muggles would surely question the odd wording but truly Harry didn’t care. This wasn’t for muggles. This was for himself, his children, and those who loved Severus. That’s it. Nothing more nothing less. 

“I could of loved you father”, Harry whispered to himself hoping no one would hear and question the statement. He could of loved Snape. As a little boy and even now as grown man. If only Severus Snape would of let Harry Potter show him that. Harry couldn’t process what Draco was saying, so he simply nodded and followed along.

That night Harry had nightmares again since the war ended he had not. He woke up in a cold sweat feeling as if he couldn’t breathe. Ginny tried to calm him down, which led to her being screamed at. She sighed and told him to go sleep on the couch. Every single part of her body hurt, she just couldn’t right now deal with his baggage anymore than she already was. She had her son to worry about. Snape and his stupidity of wanting to kill himself wasn’t something to cry about. Her son functionally being cursed by the Potter parents and Snape’s actions? Now that was something to cry about.

**********

Five days later a day after her due date Ginny Potter gave birth to a healthy, straight black haired, pale as white silk baby boy. Harry had the nerve to try and name their son Severus of all things! How dare he! When her little boy already was going to have to deal with looking like that horrid man! That nasty man who was down right cruel to her and her friends in school? Who took it out on them that he had to protect her husband? The man’s looks were already going to curse her baby, his name would not. 

After three days of fighting they settled on Albus Severus Potter. She did not like it, Harry wouldn’t budge on leaving off anything to with Snape, and when she had suggested the man’s middle name instead? Harry threatened to name their son by himself while she was sleeping. 

He never would explain to her why he wouldn’t allow the little boy’s first or middle name to be Tobias instead of Severus. When she pressed he simply snarled at her, not unlike his biological father. Truly she had never seen the similarity between the two men until she knew they were related. Harry James Potter may look like James Potter, but in actions and behaviors? He was all Severus Snape and Lily Evans. 

They settled on the boy’s name, she didn’t love it, but she hoped the name would help her son become the good little Gryffindor she wanted to raise him to be. Boy was she ever wrong on what Albus Severus Potter was going to become. 

*******

Albus Severus, mostly known as Al was five when his mother was once again trying to cut his long black ever greasy hair, and he was trying to read a book far above his grade level. At least it was on Unicorns at least, instead of the Potion’s book he was reading last week. He allowed her to cut it, knowing his magic would cause it to grow back as soon as she was finished. The witch tried doing this at least once a week to no success. 

His father on the other hand, had long since given up when it came to Albus’s hair. He let the boy keep it at chin length just as the five year old liked it. Long enough to allow him to hide in it when he was nervous, upset or worried, but short enough that it didn’t need too much brushing. Al hated when people brushed his hair, mostly his mother though. She always complained as she did it, yanked it roughly though his thin wispy hair, as if she was trying to yank it out by the root with the brush. Like she would rather have a bald son than one with long hair. 

Albus strongly disliked his mother most days. She was not smart like Hermione Weasley, his aunt who always brought him new books, she wasn’t funny like uncle George or uncle Ron, she didn’t try and teach him things about muggles like grandpa, she didn’t cook him nice things like grandma, she didn’t talk about dragons like uncle Charlie, she didn’t take him swimming regularly like uncle Bill, she wasn’t kind to him like dad was. Ginny Weasley Potter clearly did not like her second child, her second son Albus Severus Potter. It was like she was looking at someone she hated every time she looked at him.

Albus Severus was the splitting image of Severus Snape, with Lily’s eyes and nose. He was what his father should of looked like before the spell was put on him. The little boy had a thin long narrow face, large green eyes, a thin long narrow though not large nose, his lips were thin and pale, his lashes long, his hair straight as a board, though greasy throughout the spring and summer. If he was honest and Al usually was it was slightly greasy throughout the whole year, just worse in the spring and summer. His skin was pale, some child at primary school they were being mean said it was as pale as death. His dad said it was as pale as snow, or milk. He also said royalty prided themselves on having skin like Albus’s so he should be proud of it as well.

Unlike both of his parents Albus even at a young age knew he was going to be horrid on a broom, beyond that he didn’t even like watching Quidditch. He found the sport rather dull. He had fallen off his childhood broom ten times before Ginny had sighed and said “they will just have to teach you at Hogwarts”.

Albus preferred books to flying, he preferred potions, to games with James and Lily. Even at five he thought James who was seven was a bit of a brat. Always picking on his little brother for him being different than himself. Lily on the other hand was three. Al didn’t like her because she wouldn’t listen to him. She followed James around however like a lost little duckling. 

No Albus Severus happier with his books, unlike his father, his other relatives, his mother, and his siblings who were better on a broom. He did like visiting grandpa Severus’s grave the man he was named after. From what his dad had said he was a lot alike his grandpa Sev. While James was a lot alike grandpa James. And who knows if Lily would be like grandma Lily? She was only three after all. 

Albus questioned his father why they had three grandparents and other children only had two or four. Dad however never would actually answer and told the little boy he would when he was older. Sometimes Albus wondered if his mother would of loved him more if he looked her. Lily Luna looked like her. With her red hair, brown eyes and freckled skin. Once in a blue moon, though not actually that infrequently Albus wished he looked more like his parents or siblings maybe then his mum would love him the same as James and Lily even if he couldn’t fly on a broom like them or their parents. 

Ginny screamed as seconds after she had finished cutting Albus's hair it grew back to chin length. Merlin she thought to herself, why did her child have to look so much like her least favorite professor, at least James Potter used the kinder of the two spells, at least Lily didn’t look like bloody Snape. His looks would look far worse on her little girl. Sometimes she wondered on days like these if maybe she should of just married Dean Thomas. She didn’t know what she would do done if she would of known about the spell before she married Harry. Truly though she may have just locked Snape in the ward for mentally unstable wizards.

That would of fixed all their problems. Maybe before the potion’s master died of old age they could of found something to stop the curse from affecting the line. Or maybe Harry would of figured out a way to remove it, and he would of ended up looking like Snape. She wouldn’t of married him then. No Merlin, she would not be married to a mini Snape. 

*********

Albus Severus was ten years old now. His father finally deemed him old enough to hear about why he, and his siblings had well five grandparents, three on his father’s side. Harry had spent months writing in a notebook every night. Sometimes making progress, sometimes not. It was all worth it to see his son smile at him like that. His bright green eyes peaking out from his long hair, his crooked grin, his slightly too large teeth. 

Al rarely was as happy as he was that night Harry handed him that notebook. That night meant more to Harry than all the galleons in his vault. Albus Severus was to Harry a wonderful, beautiful child. Yes he was different than the rest of their children. Yes the boy was as Slytherin as they come, yes he knew his son was gay even when he was only ten years old, but Al saw Harry the way James and Lily never did. Albus Severus saw Harry’s love as a gift. 

Harry’s heart would break though if he knew why his son saw the love of a parent as a gift, because as hard as Ginny tried she never could love the representative of Lily Evan’s choice to cheat on James Potter as something so wonderful as her other children. Ginny wasn’t a bad person, Al wasn’t a easy child to love, but he was their child. Albus Severus was no more Severus Snape, than Harry was. And even Ginny could see while her husband did not look like Snape he sure did act like him. 

No the problem was for better or worse Ginny Potter had been the popular girl, married a popular boy, and then she had expected her children to be like their parents and two of them were. Albus was a not ugly child, but he would not win a beauty contest. He was not mean, but he did not wear his heart on his sleeve. He was intelligent, quiet, yes he was sullen, yes he was ambitious, yes he was wary, but he also was a ton like Hermione Granger. 

And Ginny Potter always worried that Hermione was going to steal her husband from her. It had gotten worse over the years. If Harry could be closest to their odd son, surely he could love a woman like that child? Maybe even want to leave Ginny for a woman like that? It was crazy talk. That’s why Ginny never spoke it another person, not even her mother. So she took these buried feelings out on her son, explaining them away to even herself that he looked too much like Snape for her to love. It just was easier that way.

********

Albus Severus met the portrait of his grandfather when he was sixteen. Of his namesake that is. When he found Severus’s painting all the young man could say is “you look like me! None of my family really looks like me. I have dad’s eyes, which were grandma’s, but that’s it. But you grandfather Severus look like me.”

Severus saw the Slytherin prefect badge on the boy’s robes and smiled. He wished that the spell wouldn’t of snapped back as some people called it, but at least this child seemed to function okay with it. Though if anyone would understand looking okay meant jack shit it would be a Prince. And this boy it seemed was just as much a Prince as Severus or his mother Eileen had been. Which meant the boy had also inherited their clinical depression, that was like a sea monster ready to snap you up whole and chew up your bones.

Severus the painting only vaguely remembered what it was like to be depressed, but he remembered the actions he had taken while depressed. Trying to kill himself multiple times being the most memorable. Drinking heavily that was another. Though that’s the reason Harry existed. You see James Potter was sterile, that’s why he didn’t chuck Lily out. That’s why he had stolen Severus’s son from him. 

But that’s why he also didn’t punish all of Harry’s children born after the spell broke from their deaths. The spell required at least one grandchild to be of the correct line. If that wouldn’t of been required, then in all likelihood Albus would look like any other Potter. 

Severus finally got up the courage to speak to Al. “Yes I am your grandfather. And I do look a quite like you. Are angry about that fact?”

”No Sir” Said Albus. So unlike his father in that moment. “I am like you in other ways, I am of course as you can see a Slytherin, I am good at Potion’s, I am a horrid flyer, I want to one day teach defense against the dark arts, and I love someone who I don’t think he will ever love me back. You know I am nothing to write home about. Look at me.” Albus spun in a circle “would you date me?”

Severus laughed, a full laugh something he rarely did. “ First off child I am straight, in life and in death, and second I am your grandfather. Third learn the lesson I never did learn you have more in life and love to give than your looks, your income and fake loving words. Be yourself and if it suppose to be? He will love you. Unless you turn to the dark. And then you will loose him. Just as I lost your grandmother. Now who is this boy you like so much?”

Albus sighed and chocked his head to the side, his long hair covering one green eye “his name is Scorpius Malfoy”. 

The painting of Severus choked on those two words. Surely Draco didn’t raise his son to be a monster like his father?

You see though Scorpius Malfoy was the exact opposite of Lucius Malfoy if there ever was one existed in the Malfoy family. 

The two Slytherins chatted like old friends, or family, which they were. This painting of Severus cared about the potion’s which Al was interested in making better some potions better. Mostly healing potions, those geared towards mental health. 

Severus asked the teenager “why do you have a interest in those types of potions?” 

Albus stared at his black well worn dragon hide boots, not answering, the portrait of his grandfather and the man who was functionally his hero. The man he would never get to really meet because of his lack of good mental health treatment. Because of the fact that Severus Snape took his own life just over a week before Albus was born. 

Severus sighed his face pinching making him look older than he actually was, turning away from his grandson he said “it’s because of me isn’t it? You want to make the potions better because you wonder if they would of done a better job and had less side affects I would of taken them.”

Al nodded at his shoes, his pale shell like ears turn a shade of bright red.

“Albus Severus Potter....” he considered breaking the boy’s heart and telling that nothing not a damn potion that existed now, then or ever would of saved his life when he was so hell bent on killing himself. Instead he does a rather grandfatherly thing and says “that’s such a noble thing Albus, I think you will really make difference with those potions. I think you will save many lives if you can. I am proud that such a intelligent, ambitious young man with a good heart carries my name. You remind me quite bit of your grandmother Lily. She was such a wonderful witch. That’s exactly something she would want to do. Now about that young man of yours I know a little bit about Draco from his time and school and you can tell if Scorpius likes these things as well. They might help you win him over.”

Albus Severus Potter made Severus Snape act like grandfather instead of a horrid potion’s professor who told his own son, “it may have escaped your notice, but life isn’t fair”. Life still may not be fair, but Severus was going to try and help make Al’s just a little bit better. More so when the painting realized Albus carried his own clinical depression, and his mother Ginny wasn’t helping matters. Severus had never liked that girl most of the time he taught at Hogwarts, she was better in his year as Headmaster without Harry around, but he never thought the little red haired witch was good enough for his son. 

What boggled his mind the most? Was when people dared to compare her to Lily. Ginny Weasley was no Lily Evans. 

**********

Albus stood at the end of aisle waiting for Scorpius to walk down it with his father. His own father stood with him. They were nineteen years old. Al’s were black with green edges. His long hair had grown out even more. It was shoulder length now. Aunt Hermione had platted it, and tied it back out of his face. Ginny, his mother had decided not to take part in helping him get ready, she couldn’t get over that he was marrying a Malfoy. 

His father said it didn’t matter. Scorpius as he had learned over the years, was nothing like Draco as a child, or Lucius ever. He was his own person just like Albus was. James had refused to stand up with his brother. Saying he wouldn’t take part in a Slytherin wedding. That got him slapped upside the back of his head, by his aunt Hermione. The now minister had given him a dirty look. 

Albus hadn’t even bothered to ask Lily Luna. She hated him, while James just disliked him. People said that James was a mini version of their father with hazel eyes. They said Lily was a mini version of Ginny. Lily took that to heart in a way James had not. She wanted to be exactly like their mother, and she shared their mother’s beliefs on Albus himself. 

James had decided he wasn’t going to be a mini version of Harry no that wouldn’t be cool enough, he wanted to be a mini version of James Potter the first. With the way his brother behaved Al did not wonder why the first Lily did not like how James senior behaved. He did not wonder why Severus Snape hated James Potter it wasn’t that hard to understand. It generally was staring him in the face whenever his brother was around. 

People said about Albus Severus? That he looked a lot like Severus Snape. Some woman named Skeeter had even started a rumor that Al was a product of male pregnancy between Harry and Severus Snape (who wasn’t actually dead). Albus hated to admit even with how funny the story sounded considering the man was actually his grandfather? Sometimes he wished it could be true. He knew his dad loved him, and he knew from the painting at least Severus was capable of loving him in a way his mother never could. 

Draco and Scorpius reached the end of the aisle. Scor is dressed in white robes with pale blue and sliver edges. His white blonde hair falls like a Cascade around his face. His eyes, his blue sliver eyes take in Albus, as he’s the most wonderful thing in the world. Al wishes he could be as Scorpius sees him, the man his husband sees when he looks at him is far better than he ever will be. Draco Malfoy hugs Albus saying “I am happy you will joining my family, and that you and Scorpius found each other.”

Harry shockingly also hugged Draco. Draco did not look all too much like Lucius had, besides the same white blonde Malfoy hair. Which was tied back in a ponytail. His sliver eyes were softer. His expression kinder. His all black robes, his potion stained fingers, but most of all what made him not look like his father was his gentle smile. 

The two young men said their vows and then kissed. Both fathers cried. Hermione Weasley cried from her seat. Ron smiled from his own seat. Rose Weasley rolled her brown eyes. Hugo sat with Lily and they both tried to ignore the wedding. Mrs Weasley smiled, her grandson was now a married man and soon she would be a great grandmother. Her red hair was now salt and pepper gray. Her husband’s Arthur’s hair was now a shocking white.

The married men walked down the aisle holding hands, and they went to their Reception, Albus hoping his mother would keep her opinions to herself. That was however not the case. 

********

Albus screamed loudly Scorpius held him. Al was giving the greatest gift anyone could ever give a wizarding spouse, a son and a heir. They had used a male pregnancy potion. Al had insisted on taking it himself since Scorpius was better at running their small potion’s shop, once he was warned that whoever took the potion would spend at least two months on bed rest at the end of the pregnancy. Albus ever the over achiever spent three months on bed rest. 

They were only twenty years old now. They wanted to try early because sometimes it was hard to get pregnant, but within three months of starting the potions, they got the good news. 

Scorpius wished he could take his beautiful husband’s pain. No matter what random people, and not so random people (his mother in law included), he had never seen a man before as beautiful as his husband. His heart and soul shined through his earthly skin. Not that his skin wasn’t beautiful either. Those large green eyes, which were always so expressive. 

Those thin pale lips when they were bitten. The pale skin took his bites, his kisses and licks like a dream when he wanted to mark his husband as his own. 

Those long limbs. His hair was far softer than it was greasy, potion’s simply made it greasy. When he stopped brewing because of the pregnancy, it simply stayed lush and soft. 

Truly to Scorpius there was no more beautiful sight than his husband rounded heavily with their son. The pale rounded pregnant belly was beautiful to him. Albus was the only person Scorpius had ever wanted. And now his husband was bringing their son into the world. 

He was snapped out of his thoughts by his husband’s screams. The mediwitch was telling him it’s now time to push. Scorpius climbed behind his husband to support him. He rested his hand on Al’s rounded belly and kissed his forehead. “I love you my love, and soon we will be meeting our son”. 

A hour later a pale baby boy with jet black hair and sliver eyes was laid on Albus’s chest. They both cried tears of joy, while their son screamed loudly not enjoying being out in the big wide world, and outside of the comfort that was his father’s belly. 

“What shall we name him?” Asked Scorpius. 

Albus answered “Evan Regulus Malfoy. After your mum’s cousin and my great grandmother’s Maiden name. Unless you want something different”.

Scorpius smiled and laughed “no I think that’s beautiful. Welcome to the world little Evan Regulus Malfoy”.

**********

Evan grew into a bright young boy. He was the Apple of both his grandfather’s eyes. Albus has everything he had ever wanted, and yet he felt like a heavy rock was tied to his ankle and he was always sinking.

He would go days without sleeping, a week without showering. Other days he wouldn’t leave his bed. The depression which he had just grown to accept as part of his existence, grew worse when he learned that the potion he was put on by a healer trying to treat the sadness he wore like a cloak, made it impossible to safely carry another child.

He stood on the edge of a cliff one night desperate to jump, but unable to step off. His love of his husband, son, father, family, and in-laws was not what stopped him, but the fear no one would ever find him. That his relatives would simply think he disappeared. Death, not existing, that did not cause the thirty two year old any fear. That was something that he welcomed, but causing his family pain of not knowing what happened that’s what stopped him.

He didn’t even consider how his family would feel when he was dead, his mind thought that they would be happy to have a worthless piece of crap like him gone. He stared out at the Irish Sea, wondering if he would ever get the courage to jump or if he should just go home. He looked up at the moon, the full harvest moon. It was October leaves have fallen off the trees, they were red, orange and gold. He did what his mind healer said when he felt like this, think of simple things, things that grounded him. 

First she suggested thinking of happy things, which caused him to laugh at their first visit. He had laughed soundly, telling her that thinking about the things that made him happy made him think of how many times how much he failed them. And thinking about Ginny his mother? How their relationship was so strained? How it was like when she looked at him she was seeing someone else? Someone she hated. 

That person was Severus Snape, his grandfather and his name did not help matters when it came to that.

He turned around and walked from the cliff that he nearly jumped off. He wasn’t going to end his life today, no matter how much he wanted to. He needed to collect potion ingredients that’s the whole reason he was on the coast. To collect things that it was cheaper to take a day off, than to buy them at another shop or from a dealer. The quality was also better if he collected them himself under the harvest moon. 

He grabbed them quickly wanting to get away the temptation of the rocky cliff. He needed to talk to the mediwizard he sometimes saw about changing his meds. If something didn’t change soon next time he came by something like that cliff where it was just, so easy to end it? He was going to. And while a part of him wanted that. Craved it like some people craved ice cream, like children begged their parents to take them to take them to the playground, and ten and half wizard born children desperately wanted to go to Hogwarts. 

Instead of wanting something wonderful, like his great grandmother and his grandfather before him? Albus Severus Potter craved death. That’s what depression sometimes does to a person, they aren’t actively suicidal, well not counting tonight that is, but also not being willing to jump. Not being willing to take that potion, or use a muggle gun to blow out their brains.

Albus needed serious help, he wasn’t getting better he was getting worse. And the darkness that swallowed Severus was going to swallow him as well. That is if something didn’t give and give soon.

**********

Albus Severus had a appointment with his mediwizard and his mind healer today. His mediwizard was a half bald man with salt and pepper hair named healer Smith. He was quiet, soft spoken and matter of fact. He also was a Ravenclaw at Hogwarts. He greatly understood telling Al that his husband or son needed him did as much good as telling him trolls wanted to be his friend. 

The potion’s master already knew those things. That didn’t stop him from seriously considering jumping off that cliff. It didn’t stop him from considering mixing a deadly poison when worked alone. It just made Albus give him dirty looks and say “I know that, and they are still better off without me”. 

Evan was at Hogwarts, which while it made the boy happy, it also made it quite clear to Al one day his young son would move out, one day his son would have a family of his own, and one day Albus would come home and there would be no broom in the closet, no oil paints in his cupboard, no forgotten too small boots for him or Scorpius to trip over.

The Malfoy family would never get their second heir, because it was to dangerous for Al to go off his potion’s to have a child. And the touch of the blood curse Scorpius had from his mother made it impossible for him to carry said pregnancy himself. 

That was more painful to Albus than his depression, his anxiety over things that didn’t make any sense, or even the nightmares he never talked about or tried to even think about. His mother screaming at him. His father being killed by a snake faced man. Bellatrix trying to kill his grandmother Weasley. Lucius Malfoy looking like he was dumped in the Great Lake, rung out and then hit by the night bus. The worse was the cackling laughter. The blackness. Hissing that sometimes came with it. Albus Severus Potter was somehow someway haunted by a past he never lived. Things that happened long before he was even born, let alone the thirty two year old man he was now. 

His nightmares were so stupid. He was haunted in his dreams by bloody stories! And no he was never going to voice that fact to anyone living or dead. Even if those around him who were alive when the war actually happened might understand a little of what he was going through.

No Albus said screw it to himself he wasn’t waiting till Christmas. Seeing his son one more time was just going to make him not go through with what was the only thing that was going to stop the nightmares, stop his pain and that was his death. 

***********

”You see” Said the man to the reporter who was taking her notes rather carefully. “ My father wrote it all down that night. All of it. First I wasn’t going to tell you about my father’s suicide for fear of upsetting you, but when you told me your own muggle father killed himself I knew you could understand. I knew Ms Wikes you were the person to help me write my family’s story.” Finished Evan Regulus Malfoy. 

He was thirty two the same age his father when he had died. He had one deadline to make he needed to make it to forty three. Eileen Snape had died when she was thirty two, forty three was when Severus died, and Albus Severus went home from that mediwizard appointment made a simple poison and laid down in their spare bedroom. Evan was for whatever reason he barely even remembered now sent home by Headmaster Longbottom to check on his father. Scorpius was traveling in the America’s, his dad had a bad feeling, and he get ahold of no one else, assuming it was nothing he asked his former professor if his son could check on the man. 

This time however his dad had been correct with his “bad feeling” so their twelve year old son had found his father stone cold dead in the spare bedroom next to his own. That was where his great aunt Hermione, or as she called herself, had found the young boy curled up next to the body of his father on the floor just as she had found Harry all those years ago.

Until her death she made it her job to help Scorpius raise Evan. She wasn’t going to let another young man find his dead father in that family. Or any if she had a chance. She Campaigned for better mental health services in the wizarding world. Safety nets to stop people like Albus being allowed to leave that mediwizard’s office when they are so close to killing themselves. 

When she passed away it became Evans fight. A fight he would never stop fighting. Because if their wasn’t better systems in place? No one, was safe from dying like his father. Whether it was caused by trauma or genetics or both mental illness killed just as easy as a wand or sword. Sometimes far easier. 

Evan was a lot like his father or so his dad always said. He had his thin straight black hair, though his was always tied back. His eyes though sliver were just as sharp. His fingers were long and potion stained. He had given up painting the night he found his father, though he did sometimes tell people that painting was quite similar to potion making.

Not that those who barely understood either art believed him. Ms Wikes might though. Her long blonde hair was platted back, her nearly purple eyes bright. Her freckled nose pinched as she wrote. She was beautiful, a little too young for him, just out of Howgarts, but with magic folk living so long what did it matter?

In another life he might of asked her out to dinner. He was a man after all, but this was not another life, and young witches tended to want children something Evan had swore never to have. There were no happy endings for Princes, ever. 

“Ms Wikes?” He asked.

“Yes, like I said before call me Emily.”

”Ms Wikes that would be improper”.

”I writing your family history down, we are long past what is considered proper in the wizarding world”. Said Emily her tone adamant.

He spoke to her kindly, but firmly “Ms Wikes let’s not start something we can’t finish.”

”Fine” she said “ does your father’s death have anything to do with why one Mr Harry Potter took a dangerous mission in Russia that led to his death?”

“Quite a lot, actually we can go through the papers by owl separately and share information if you need more after my next story”.

Emily Wikes nodded at him and readied her quill. 

**Author's Note:**

> Mental illness runs heavily on both sides of my family. It’s left a horrid trail in my family. Evan’s choice at the end of the fic is similar to my own. The choice not have children. 
> 
> My father died when I was ten, by suicide. I thankfully did not find him and was not home at the time. But it impacted my life in more ways than I ever will be able to explain in words.  
Suicide is not a choice. Mental illness is not a choice. It’s someone reaching the point of a medical condition where it becomes terminal. 
> 
> This took me a long one to come to. If you disagree? That’s their choice. This is my way of dealing with it. 
> 
> I am not in a bad place at the moment. Don’t worry. This story was cathartic in a way. I am happy I could take part in the fest. We need sad unhappy endings just as much as we need happy endings, because real life has both. 
> 
> I hope that you understood where I was coming from. This isn’t a happy fic I hope you can see why I wrote it at least.


End file.
